By the time the battle finally sputtered out in late-December, the French had regained their lost forts and effectively pushed the Germans back to where they started. The Germans continued attacking Verdun all the same, but following a failed final assault that July, they ceded the initiative to the French, who responded with a ferocious counterattack. During the course of the battle, some three-quarters. Between February and December 1916, the German 5th Army and the French 2nd Army were locked in a struggle, often over the loss or gain of a few meters of terrain. Spurred on by French General Joseph Joffre’s pleas that his army would soon “cease to exist,” the Allies launched their costly assault at the Somme River on July 1, 1916.Ĭombined with Russia’s Brusilov Offensive, which led to the capture of hundreds of thousands of Austro-Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front, the attack forced the Germans to divert men and artillery away from the Verdun sector at a crucial juncture. On 21 February 1916, the German 5th Army launch what was to become the longest battle of the war at the French fortress of Verdun. The Battle of the Somme is one of the few World War I engagements that matched Verdun for sheer bloodshed, but it may have relieved pressure on the French at a time when their forces were on the verge of collapse. Douaumont would have been all but impregnable under normal circumstances, but its garrison had been reduced to just 57 men in the months before the battle. On February 25, German forces approached Fort Douaumont, the most sprawling of the several dozen French bastions surrounding Verdun. German Forces Seized a Crucial French Fort Without Firing a Shot By February 24-just three days after the initial bombardment-the Germans had advanced several miles and overrun the first two French defensive lines.
The French managed to make last-minute preparations after poor weather delayed the German onslaught, but they still found themselves on their back foot during the early stages of the battle. The forts surrounding Verdun had seen little action during the early stages of the war, and many of their garrisons and artillery pieces had been moved to hotter sectors.
Despite the massive engineering project going on right under their noses, the French were largely unprepared for a German attack. Using rugged terrain and a huge air presence to screen their movements, Falkenhayn’s men spent seven weeks constructing new railway lines, assembling heavy concrete bunkers to house troops, and stockpiling more than 1,200 artillery pieces.Ī staggering 2.5 million shells were shipped to the front using 1,300 munitions trains. Germany’s preparations for the Battle of Verdun involved one of World War I’s largest buildups of men and equipment.
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